


it's alarming how charming I feel

by Catja



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Bisexual Clarke Griffin, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Nontoxic Masculinity, Pansexual Bellamy Blake, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-28 11:59:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17786987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catja/pseuds/Catja
Summary: Bellamy tries some new things; Clarke's into it.





	it's alarming how charming I feel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blvkebellamy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blvkebellamy/gifts).



> Gift fic for [blvke-bellamy](https://blvke-bellamy.tumblr.com/). The prompt was "Bellamy wearing eyeliner." Based on actual events (though we were already together by the time he started stealing my leggings). Title from West Side Story.

It starts when Clarke's doing her own nails, sitting on the floor with her bottles of nail polish spread across the coffee table. She was trying to do a full rainbow gradient, but her nails aren’t really long enough for all six colors. Obviously, it's still a few months until Pride, but it never hurts to be prepared, make sure she can actually do this. When Bellamy gets home, she’s flopped onto the floor between the couch and the coffee table, trying to summon the energy to go remove the muddy mess of color. It’s taken her over an hour already, to get this far, three entire episodes of Brooklyn 99, and now there’s no end in sight.

Bellamy looms over her, tie already loosened and the top button undone. Today’s tie is panda bears and bamboo, the shirt an offensive shade of green. He’s only in his first year of teaching, but already he’s amassed a collection of curriculum-relevant neckwear. It’s the only thing he requests for gift-giving holidays anymore. Clarke’s dyed a couple for him, using equipment at the makerspace she runs.

“Are you okay?” he asks, head cocked so he’s not looking at her sideways. “Did something happen?”

Clarke wiggles her fingers at him before letting them fall back to the carpet. “Polish disaster,” she says like it’ll explain everything. 

“Did they chip instantly again?” Bellamy heads into his bedroom for a minute, then returns in a loose tee and sweatpants to flop onto the couch behind her. “Or did you just fuck them up already?” He’s heard her complain about that often enough in the last two years of living together. Clarke always has so much to do, there’s no way she can handle waiting around an hour for the polish to dry, but she’s also too stubborn to deal with gel polish. 

“No, I didn’t get far enough for that.” She holds her hand toward Bellamy, letting him inspect the mess. He takes her hand in his, turning it so he can see. Clarke tries not to notice how big and warm his hands are compared to hers. She fails. “I, uh,” she says, glancing up at him. “I was trying to do a rainbow gradient.” She gestures toward her computer, a tutorial from youtube still paused. “But my nails are too small and there’s not enough room for six colors, and I did _not_ use enough latex so it’s a mess anyway.”

“Huh.” He looks down at her hand, still in his. “My nails are bigger, you can try on me if you want.”

Clarke sits up; Bellamy just holds onto her tighter to give her some leverage. “You sure? I can take it off right after.”

“No, it’s fine, I don’t mind. Octavia used to practice on me when we were kids. There’s no way you’ll be as bad as her. Besides, no one recognizes the pan flag anyway and you know how homophobic Principal Sydney is.” He smirks. “This will piss her off and she won’t be able to do anything about it.”

“You make a valid point.”

Two hours later, Clarke has successfully finished both sets of nails: a six color gradient, the full pride flag, on Bellamy, and the less complicated bi colors on hers. It’s one of those perfect winter evenings, sitting close together, having excuses to touch him, chatting about whatever the like. They haven’t had as many days like this since he started teaching. Lesson plans take a lot of work. 

“Can’t wait to see how many straight white people I piss off this week,” Bellamy says once she’s done, admiring his hands. “Thanks, Clarke.”

“No problem,” she says, bumping her shoulder against his, enjoying one last bit of closeness before she has to clean everything up.

But, in fact, it turns out to be a major problem. Clarke was already constantly distracted by his hands. Those flashes of color make her pay even more attention to him. She didn’t even think that was possible.

And Bellamy notices too. He talks with his hands more, keeps looking down at them. He even starts wearing these ridiculous turquoise rubber gloves to do the dishes, to avoid ruining them too quickly. Every time he sees them, he smiles. 

It’s just a lot for Clarke to handle.

* * *

A few days later, Clarke gets back from a shopping trip to find that the three-pack of the world’s softest leggings is, in fact, too large to fit her. “It doesn’t even make any sense,” she says, venting to Bellamy over some pho from the new place down the street. “Medium-sized things are never too big for me. If anything I usually have to size up. And it’s not like I’ve lost weight or anything, they’re just massive, and, like, a foot too long. And I can’t really return them since I demolished the packaging. At least it was only like ten bucks.”

Bellamy just shrugs, slurping up another noodle, but after they’re done, he says, bashful, while he’s doing dishes to avoid making eye contact with her, “I’ll buy them off you. If you want.”

Clarke blinks a couple of times, accepting a plate to dry. “For yourself, or…”

He’s turning faintly pink under her gaze, so Clarke starts putting away the dishes, giving him a moment to himself.

“They look comfortable,” he says, eventually. “You’re always saying how much you love them.” This is true, but it’s one of those things that Clarke always assumed Bellamy wasn’t paying attention to. When she doesn’t say anything, he goes on. “Just for around the house, obviously. I don’t want to scar any of my students.”

“You could wear them in public if your top was long enough,” Clarke says thoughtlessly, trying not to think about how Bellamy would look in leggings. She knows his legs are great, lean and muscular, from seeing him in shorts, but legs encased in tight fabric are something else entirely. Her brain shorts out a little when her imaginary gaze travels upwards, past his thighs.

“Guy shirts aren’t really long at all,” Bellamy says, pulling her out of her thoughts. Just as well.

“Well,” Clarke says, “I bet I have a shirt too, that would fit you.” 

By the time she’s found him something, an oversized men’s flannel that she got for chilly fall days, he’s in the bathroom, door wide open, inspecting himself in the giant mirror over the double sinks. 

It’s worse than Clarke had imagined.

They fit him perfectly. His t-shirt isn’t long enough to hide his ass or the bulge between his legs. Clarke forces her eyes up to his face, but his wry half-smile isn’t much better.

“It’s a bit much,” he says. 

Clarke snorts. “That’s one way of looking at it.” She gives him the flannel shirt and tries not to watch the flexing of his chest and arm muscles while he shrugs it on and buttons it up.

She steps back to inspect him once he’s done, giving herself a bit of distance from his warmth. Bellamy looks a little bit like he’s in costume as a teenage girl, but Clarke has to admit he looks good. Amazing, even. She didn’t think his legs could look that great, and the flannel fits just right around his shoulders, the dark red setting off his skin tone perfectly. He’s left the top couple of buttons open, exposing the white tee underneath.

“Still probably not work appropriate, but you could get away with it.”

He glances at her, then back to the mirror. “What would work, something longer? What even would be longer?”

“You could always go all out and just put a dress on.” Bellamy considers that then shrugs. “Or you could do the flannel around your waist,” she suggests instead. “Junior high sweatshirt style.”

He obeys. The tight shirt, tight leggings combination is awful. Bellamy is way too attractive like this, even with certain features now hidden by the flannel.

“Yeah, you could go places like that.”

He doesn’t, though, which is almost worse for Clarke. He’ll wear them all the time, when it’s just the two of them at home. Clarke can’t help but smile every time she sees him change out of his work clothes into leggings and a sweatshirt or, on one very memorable occasion, a thin white tank. It shows her how comfortable he is with her, more than anyone else, and it almost doesn’t even matter that he’s not in love with her. She gets parts of him he hasn’t shown anyone else. That’s enough. It has to be.

* * *

Bellamy asks her to repaint his nails once they start chipping, and picks out a metallic gold polish. “A lot of my students liked it,” he says while Clarke shows him how to remove the old polish. At some point, she’s going to make him try painting his own nails, and then maybe he’ll be able to do her left hand for her. She used to trade doing dominant hand nails with girls she liked in college, just for the chance to hold hands and flirt a little. It worked, sometimes. Maybe it would work again. For now, though, she likes having him sit across the coffee table from her, the tv playing reruns with the volume turned low. 

“I should probably do pink,” he muses, watching her paint minuscule skulls in black against a pale pink base on her own hands. “I’ve had a few students make some comments.”

“Do whatever you want,” Clarke says. “That’s the point, isn’t it?”

Bellamy smiles, head ducked. “Yeah. You get it.”

“Whatever the hell you want, right? Leggings are comfortable, and it’s dumb to say that guys can’t wear them.”

“And nails are boring, so why not make them fun? Genders being color coded is just a stupid social construct. Give it enough time and it’ll be orange and green.”

“Or any color for any baby,” Clarke adds, shaking out her hands. She knows it doesn’t make any difference in drying time, but it feels like bad luck not to do it. “All colors for everyone all the time.”

“In a perfect world,” Bellamy agrees. “But for now I’m thinking something shiny.” After a minute, once the acrylic paint on Clarke’s nails dries and she moves on to applying the first coat of polish on Bellamy, careful to avoid any streaks, Bellamy says, slow, like he’s been thinking about it for a while, “What do you think of makeup on guys?”

Clarke very, very deliberately continues to paint his nails. She definitely doesn’t imagine what Bellamy’s lips would like, painted a glossy red, or how just a little bit of contour would make his cheekbones even more dangerously sharp. It takes her a second to collect her thoughts, but then she tells him, “You know what I think of makeup in general. It’s an awesome art form that we’re reclaiming and reframing from the patriarchy that I don’t usually bother with myself because I’m privileged enough to be conventionally attractive and I have other things I want to do with my time. Why would I think about it differently when it’s on a guy? Any kind of guy. Men can be pretty, too.”

Bellamy shrugs, careful not to move his hands. “O used to try stuff out on me, makeup and nail polish and making me try on Mom’s clothes. It was fun, getting to play around with my image, trying things out. Until Mom found out and said that I’d end up gay or trans if I kept wearing dresses and lipstick. Not in those exact words, but you get it.” Clarke hums agreement. “But I’m pretty sure I would have ended up-”

He stops himself, lets out a frustrated grunt. Clarke doesn’t push, just moves on to his other hand, and lets him collect his thoughts. Talking to him is one of her favorite things. No matter where they start out, they always end up on the same side eventually. 

“I would have ended up pan either way, so what was the point in stopping me? I had fun, Octavia liked it, no one was getting hurt.” He shakes his head, tosses a curl of hair out of his face. “Why does it matter?”

“It shouldn’t matter,” Clarke says, gazing across at him. 

His lips quirk up, not quite a smile. “Yeah, but it does.”

“It can be a work in progress,” Clarke offers, finally pulling away when she doesn’t have an excuse to touch his hands anymore. While she’s putting some top coat over her own nails, she considers her words. “I don’t really wear makeup that often, but I still have a ton. You wanna try some?”

Bellamy says, “Sure,” casual as anything, but he can’t hide the pleased grin. She’s not sure if it’s because she offered or because she listened, but either way, she loves his smile. “It’s fun, right?”

"I think we'll have fun, yeah."

After their nails finally dry, Clarke grabs her makeup bag out of the bathroom and spreads it over the small dining table, tucked under the kitchen window with the most light. The sun is just starting to set, but they’ll have enough for now. 

“What are you thinking?” Clarke asks. Bellamy looks a little stunned by the amount of makeup Clarke has, especially as she only actually bothers with makeup once a month or so, aside from tinted chapstick or the occasional mascara, when she needs to balance out her dark circles. It’s a fair reaction; his mom probably never had this much makeup. Expectations were lower, then.

“You’re the artist,” he says with a shrug.

“Nope.” Clarke shoves him down into a chair, savoring the brief contact with his shoulder muscles. “This is about what you want and what you’re comfortable with.” Before he can protest, she adds, “Not even just visually, but I don’t know if you want to use something like lipstick that I’ve already had my mouth on. Or something on your lips at all.” She tries not to sound too hopeful about that, tries not to look at his mouth for too long, but something gives her away. 

Bellamy smirks. “You look like you have some ideas. Besides,” he says, “I trust you.”

And, well, Clarke can’t argue with that. “Fine,” she says, and his grin widens. “But you still have to give me some opinions.”

Clarke surveys her makeup stash. There’s no way any of her foundation or concealer will match his skin tone, and besides, she'll never support covering up his freckles. “How do you feel about contouring? Or some highlight? Since you’re in a sparkly mood.”

"Go for it."

At least she has a contour palette with a bit of range, although none of the shades are quite dark enough. But Clarke wouldn’t want to do anything too intense anyway until she knows Bellamy likes it. While she’s blending it out, she asks, “Do you want to see it step by step or a big reveal all at once?”

He considers it for a moment. “Big reveal. That’s what O did.”

Clarke can’t wait until the day when Bellamy lives his life without referencing Octavia for every decision he makes. She uses her finger to dab on the smallest amount of highlighter along his cheekbones, a gorgeous shade of gold that’s always been too dark for her to use as anything other than an eyeshadow.

Then, she lines his eyes, carefully, flicking out just a bit of wing, using the gel eyeliner and setting it with black eyeshadow for maximum intensity. When he looks up at her, she can’t quite breathe. She licks her lips without really thinking about it.

“Yeah,” she says, after too long of a pause. “You should definitely do eyeliner again, at least.” Everything is sharpened and intensified, just the way it would look if she ever sculpted him. That had never been her medium, but now Clarke regrets that. He should be immortalized like this. She tears her eyes away, goes through her collection of lip products. “Mascara’s kind of terrifying so I’m thinking we can just skip that. You already have amazing lashes, I don’t need to know how jealous I should be. Okay. I need another opinion. Lipstick, yes or no? Or anything on your lips, it doesn’t need to be lipstick. We could do gloss, or a tint or something.”

“Maybe nothing too much, today,” Bellamy says, and Clarke nods. 

She finds a berry lip balm and offers it to him. “You can probably handle this yourself.” She watches him run it over his lips, opening them the same way he’s seen her do it, then holds up an eyeshadow palette with a giant mirror. 

Bellamy takes it in, turning his head so his highlight can catch the light. It's cute and hot and really bad for Clarke's mental state right now. “Wow. Yeah. I’d definitely fuck me.”

Clarke lets out a laugh, but then he says, “Would you?” and it dies in her throat.

“You look amazing, yeah."

Bellamy looks up at her. The moment feels dangerous, heavy somehow. He’s never looked at her like this before, and if he ever has, then Clarke’s the most oblivious person in the world.

“That’s not what I asked.” He takes the mirror, sets it on the table.

Clarke takes a slow, steady breath, then nods. “My interest in fucking you has nothing to do with what you look like.”

Bellamy grins like the sun. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.” He tugs her down into his lap, and when she kisses him, after years of wanting him, years of not getting him, he meets her halfway.

An hour or so later, when they’re curled up in his bed, contour and eyeliner smudged and berry colored lip prints all over Clarke, he asks, surprisingly hesitant given the way she can’t stand to be more than a quarter inch away from him, “This has nothing to do with the makeup and stuff, right?”

Clarke shakes her head, taking advantage of the motion to nuzzle further into the crook of his neck. “Just because it shows what kind of person you are. I like that person. But I’ve been wanting to do that for six years, so no. I’m just in love with you,” she says, at last. It’s so much easier than she thought it would be, his body warm against hers.

He strokes his hand over her hair. “Love you too,” Bellamy says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. 

Bellamy doesn’t wear makeup all that often, or leggings out of the house, but his nails are always painted, and, to Clarke’s dismay, his eyeliner always turns out more even than hers ever does. Sometimes he’ll put on some lipstick to make a point to a student or coworker, or he’ll follow a student’s suggestion on polish colors, and when his both of his AP sections finally manage a class average of 4, he has Clarke do a full smokey eye. He wears eyeliner a lot, half because he likes how he looks in it, and half because Clarke likes how he looks in it. 

But sometimes, when they’re together, on their own, he’ll put on whatever he feels comfortable wearing that day, and that’s Clarke’s favorite thing, that he trusts her that much, as much as she trusts him.


End file.
